For All Eternity
by shulesaddict77
Summary: Mark had feared that Lexie wouldn't wait for him on the other side. He had feared that he had to be without her even after death. But he should have known that their love was strong enough to last forever. COMPLETE


**Okay, it's over. Mark and Lexie are gone and I'm gone, too. From the show. Not from writing for Mark and Lexie. :-)**

**This is how I imagine they meet in the afterlife because there is no way they wouldn't meet each other. Enjoy!**

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**For All Eternity**

"You never expected to wake up again."

Mark closed his eyes for a second, convinced that his heart had skipped a beat, though he wasn't certain if he even had a heart in the afterlife. He had waited for her. She wasn't there when he fell into a coma and he couldn't search for her as long as his body was still breathing. His soul was bound to his body. But the thirty days were over and they had pulled the plug an hour ago. He had been scared, scared that he wouldn't find her wherever it was he was going. The only reason he held on to his life was the fear that when he let go that he would also have to let go of her, that maybe even the memories would be taken away from him.

"Lex?" Mark breathed with still closed eyes. He couldn't believe she was finally here.

"Yeah?"

It was her voice and he could sense her presence. This wasn't a memory. So he turned around, his eyes still pressed shut, his hands balled to fists beside his body. Ninety days. He had to live without her for ninety days. He could not live without her in the afterlife. He needed her to be really there when he opened his eyes.

Lexie bit her lip as she saw his clenched fists, his lips pressed together to a thin line. She knew why he didn't want to open his eyes. She'd missed him, too. Terribly. So she took a step closer and lifted her hand to his face, trailing her fingers along the lines that hadn't been there before the plane crash. Oh God, how much she'd missed touching him.

Mark held his breath as he felt her fingers on his skin. It felt so real. A tear slipped out between his lashes and trailed over his cheek. He'd missed her so much.

"Mark?" Her voice was drifting over him, balm for his soul. "Open your eyes."

He didn't want to open them. What if everything was just a figment of his imagination? What if he would open his eyes and he would stare into empty space?

Lexie's eyes filled with tears until her eyes couldn't contain the tears any longer and they streamed over her face. "Please, Mark. Open your eyes. I'm really here." She felt him tremble under her hand and she brushed her fingers over his lips. "I love you."

Mark leaned into her hand, relishing the feeling of her skin for one more second before he opened his eyes slowly. The sight of her standing in front of him, her eyes swimming with tears, took his breath away and he choked out a sob when he pulled her in his arms and crushed her against his body.

"You are here." He murmured into her hair. "You are really here."

"Yes, Mark. I'm here. With you. In your arms. Where I belong."

Suddenly he pulled her back, his mouth searching hers and Lexie opened her lips immediately, letting his tongue swirl into her mouth and a sound, half moan, half sob escaped her throat as Mark kissed her hungrily.

"Oh God, I've missed you so much." Mark breathed after he'd released her lips.

"I missed you, too." Lexie replied, her eyes still closed as her fingers curled into his hair. "You can't imagine how much."

"I think I have a pretty good idea." Mark told her, brushing his fingers over her cheeks until she opened her eyes.

"I knew it wasn't easy for you, but ..." Lexie averted her gaze, unsure if she should ask the question that was on her mind.

"But?" Mark prodded, lifting her chin gently.

"Just … didn't you want to live?" Lexie asked softly.

"I tried, Lex." Mark replied quietly. "I really tried."

"I know." Lexie trailed a finger over his brow down his face, content to be finally able to touch him again. "I was with you all the time."

Mark started back in surprise, furrowing his eye brows in confusion. "So why didn't you give me a sign?"

"It doesn't work that way, Mark. I had to let you make your own decision."

"God, Lex." Mark pulled her back into his arms, enveloping her tightly in his embrace. "The hardest thing I've ever done in my whole life was to stay alive out there in the woods. I wanted to follow you so badly but I thought of all the people I would leave behind. I wasn't the only one who lost you. And I had to think of Sofia." Lexie nodded slightly against his chest. She would have never hold it against him that he wanted to try to stay alive for his daughter. "I tried. But then I woke up on the plane back to Seattle and ..." Mark buried his head in her hair, the sobs were shaking his body and Lexie tightened her arms around him, almost choking on her own sobs. "Your body bag … you were lying right beside me and I couldn't bear it. So I just gave up."

"But they brought you back." Lexie whispered into his shirt.

"Yes. Yes, they did." Mark replied, his voice hoarse with tears. "But all I could see when the charge went through my body was you, Lexie."

"So why did you stop fighting at the end?"

Mark leaned back, looking down into her tear-stained face, knowing that his own face was looking exactly like hers. He raised his hands and cradled her face, leaning his forehead against hers and closed his eyes, his next words almost inaudible as he breathed them out. "Because I couldn't live without you."

They held each other what seemed to be hours before Mark cleared his throat, walking with her to the two chairs at the wall. Both had completely forgotten that Derek and Callie were waiting for his last breath. They were only consumed by each other.

After they'd sat down, Mark turned around to face her again. "When I was unconscious after they'd revived me I was always with you. You were always on my mind. And then Julia came to my bed side and I …" Mark trailed off, unable to tell her how he had thought for a split second that he would do anything if it wouldn't be Julia sitting in front of him but Lexie. So the only right thing to do had been to let her go because he would have never been able to love anyone else than Lexie. Suddenly a thought struck him. "Where you there?"

"Yes, I was there. I told you. I never left your side."

"It would have been nice to actually see you." Mark smiled but Lexie could see the hurt in his eyes.

"I wanted you to see me but I couldn't make myself visible to you. They ..." Lexie trailed off, not sure if she could explain it to him.

"What?" Mark prodded. "Who are 'they'?"

"I don't know. They are just voices. They ..." Lexie gulped hard, tightening her fingers around his hand. "They told me that I need to move on, that I need to let you go."

"But you didn't."

"You said you couldn't live without me."

"Because it's the truth, Lex."

"Well, I can't live without you either, Mark. I would have stayed at your side forever, even if you couldn't see me."

"So you were also there when I woke up the next time." Mark said it without question.

"Yes, I was."

"It was only a last surge of energy. I didn't have more left in me than talking to Derek and Callie one more time because every breath I took while awake was excruciating." Mark told her softly. "Living without you was excruciating. But I managed to give Avery a pep talk before I went downhill again."

"You told him not to make the same mistake." Lexie stated quietly.

"I said it too late, Lexie. If I had told you right away, if I had said it right in front of Julia, maybe we wouldn't have been on the plane. Maybe we would have taken a vacation. Maybe we wouldn't be dead right now if I had just said it earlier."

Lexie almost felt physical pain as she saw the devastated look in his eyes. "But we are together now, Mark."

"But we'll never have a family. We'll never have a house with the obligatory white picket fence." Mark shouted angrily. "We don't have a life."

"We have a life _here_, Mark." Lexie said softly, laying her hand on his arm. "Not what we would have wished for. But I can touch you, feel you, hear you. I died without having the chance to be in your arms one more time, without feeling your lips on mine just one last time. But I can do all of those things now."

Lexie pulled his head down to her, crushing her lips on his, laying all her pain about the lost opportunities in the kiss and Mark kissed her back as frantically.

"See." Lexie whispered. "We don't need to be down on earth to be mindblowingly fantastic."

Mark chuckled against her cheek and replied. "You're right. We are fantastic everywhere. Even in heaven."

"Come on. Let's go." Lexie turned around and walked towards the door.

"Whereto?"

"Nowhere, anywhere. Does it matter?" Lexie smiled up at him. "As long as we are together?"

"Nothing else matters."

As Mark stepped forward to follow her it was as if he ran into a wall and he cried out surprised. "What the hell is this?"

"Ohh." Lexie looked a little guiltily to the bed where Derek and Callie were watching Mark's body. She had completely forgotten that they were there.

"Don't tell me I can't follow you." Mark said fearfully, lifting his hands to press them against the invisible wall. "No, Lex, please don't leave without me."

"No, no." Lexie stepped towards him, touching him with her hand to reassure him that she was still with him. "You can follow me. We'll go together. But ..." Her eyes drifted to the bed and she said quietly, her eyes glued to the figure on it. "You have to let go first."

"Oh, right." Mark turned around and stared at his own body

"Are they gonna be okay?" Lexie asked silently, looking at the painful expressions on Callie and Derek's face.

"With time." Mark laid an arm around her shoulder, pressing her into his side and Lexie wrapped her arms around his waist, laying her face against his chest.

"But shouldn't you have ..."

Mark pulled her back to look into her eyes, a sad smile appearing on his face. "There are going to be fine. But I wouldn't have been fine. You weren't there anymore, Lex. My heart was breaking every second I was apart from you and it hurt. It hurt so much that I wished I could just stop breathing. So don't tell me what I should have done because I've done the only thing I could do." Mark exhaled a slow breath, leaning down to press a soft kiss against her lips before he met her eyes again. "I needed to be with you, Lex. Remember what I told you the day you died?"

"Every single word." Lexie whispered, her eyes shimmering with newly formed tears.

"I've always been in love with you. I will always be in love with you."

"Every minute of every day." Lexie spoke quietly, giving him a shaky smile.

Mark raised his hands and threaded them into her hair, cradling her face before he replied. "Every minute of every day."

When he leaned down again to kiss her, he heard the peeping of the heart monitor behind him and felt a little shove as his body released his soul to be with the only woman he ever wanted to be with. For all eternity.

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**I think Eric was incredible last night. When he looked at the body bag on the plane back to Seattle I nearly burst into tears in the middle of the train, surrounded by a ton of people. I don't know, just this look and then when he turned his head around and coded … it just broke my shipper heart all over again. I'm really gonna miss them. **


End file.
